{"id":1028,"date":"2009-01-28T08:53:02","date_gmt":"2009-01-28T08:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2009\/01\/on-a-more-serious-note.html"},"modified":"2009-01-28T08:53:02","modified_gmt":"2009-01-28T08:53:02","slug":"on-a-more-serious-note","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2009\/01\/on-a-more-serious-note.html","title":{"rendered":"On a more serious note"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pope addressed the topic of the moment – the Holocaust – in his General Audience today. The full text will not be available for a good while, but AsiaNews reports:<\/a><\/p>\n

The Holocaust remains a warning against the power of evil and all forms of oblivion and negationism, Benedict XVI said today as he expressed his \u201cfull and unquestionable solidarity\u201d with Jews. The Pope who mentioned his visit to Auschwitz also referred to his decision to lift the excommunication on bishops consecrated by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, urging them to accept the Second Vatican Council.<\/span>\u201cWhilst I renew with affection the expression of my full and unquestionable solidarity with our (Jewish) brothers, I hope the memory of the Shoah (Holocaust) will induce humanity to reflect on the unpredictable power of hate when it conquers the heart of man,\u201d the Holy Father said. The Holocaust, he added must be \u201ca warning against oblivion, negation or reductionism because violence against even one human being is violence against all.\u201d <\/span>
\nBenedict XVI\u2019s remarks come in response to the controversy caused by a traditionalist bishop, Mgr Richard Williamson, who has denied the gas chambers ever existed, cutting the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust to at best 300,000.<\/span>
\nThe Pope\u2019s words also coincide with the decision by Israel\u2019s Chief Rabbinate to cut ties with the Vatican, this according to The Jerusalem Post<\/em>, following the lifting of the excommunication of the Lefebvre-consecrated Holocaust-denying bishop. <\/span>
\nThe Chief Rabbinate also cancelled a meeting scheduled for 2-4 March in Rome with the Vatican\u2019s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews.<\/span>
\nAs for relations with the followers of Archbishop Lefebvre, the Pope mentioned the parable of the Miraculous Draught of Fish to illustrate the constant quest for Church unity, saying he granted \u201cthe remission of the excommunication pronounced on four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre without pontifical mandate in 1988 [. . .] in compliance with this service of unity.\u201d<\/span>
\n\u201cI performed this act of paternal mercy because the prelates expressed to me their heart-felt suffering over the situation in which they found themselves,\u201d the pope said.<\/span>
\n\u201cI hope that my gesture will be followed by a considerate commitment on their part to take the necessary steps to realise full communion with the Church, thus showing true faithfulness to and recognition of the magisterium and authority of the Pope and the Second Vatican Council.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\nAs AsiaNews<\/em> reports elsewhere, Benedict XVI also invoked the Holy Spirit for the new Patriarch of Moscow Kirill. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The catechetical portion of the Audience centered on the pastoral letters of Paul.<\/span>
\nRelated: Teresa Benedetta has an interview with Bishop Fellay published in Libero (<\/em>scroll down)<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Pope addressed the topic of the moment – the Holocaust – in his General Audience today. The full text will not be available for a good while, but AsiaNews reports: The Holocaust remains a warning against the power of evil and all forms of oblivion and negationism, Benedict XVI said today as he expressed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nOn a more serious note - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2009\/01\/on-a-more-serious-note.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On a more serious note - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Pope addressed the topic of the moment – the Holocaust – in his General Audience today. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}